Originally posted by David O'Meara: based on local news it appears Australia is strong chance, but I have always accused them of being biased. :roll:

I know Australia are good at almost every sport on the planet, but the World Cup? Nah, there's more chance of Peter Crouch winning a Most Graceful Footballer award then Australia winning the World Cup.

My bet is Argentina, but then my guess has been wrong in every single international competition I've ever watched.

There will be glitches in my transition from being a saloon bar sage to a world statesman. - Tony Banks

Originally posted by David O'Meara: based on local news it appears Australia is strong chance, but I have always accused them of being biased. :roll:

I read that Australians were more obsessed with winning the Ashes than the World Cups in cricket,football,hockey etc. Are the local news focussing on the World Cup because the Ashes series is not going on? My take is on Brazil,Germany or England.

I read that if England with the World Cup, their players will each get about $500k - not bad for just playing eight games in four weeks!

I think this will be the best World Cup ever, the last one in Japan & South Korea (2002) was pretty poor (but great stadia) - the quality of the football and the poor referring underminded it. European World Cups (apart from Italia '90 - which was probably the worst in history) are usually good, especially if France '98 is anything to go by.

Solid Gold:

The most prestigious sporting event in the world - bigger than the Super Bowl with 188 countries and an estimated two thirds of the world population will watch it.

I think it will be either Brazil, Argentina (who England beat in a recent friendly), or England (who are the best team in Europe).

The opening ceremony begins in 6 hours in this wonderful stadium:

Daniel Bauer
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posted Jun 09, 2006 03:24:00

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Originally posted by Pradip Bhat:

ok. England will win.

England have won it before - in 1966.

Brazil in 2002:

Dave Lenton
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posted Jun 09, 2006 03:37:00

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Originally posted by Kishore Dandu: USA

Sorry to all the Americans here, but I actually wouldn't like the USA to win it, for two main reasons.

Firstly they have two Reading FC players in their team. While I, as a Reading fan, would like them to gain confidence through the World Cup, too much exposure through success could lead to other teams trying to pinch them!

This is the lesser of the reasons though. The other is the side effects of US success. In sports where the US makes a real effort to win, such as the Olympics, the demographic and financial size of the US means that they can consistently win. Should the US decide that it actually likes football, instead of seeing it as a funny game for foreigners and kids, then it would be able to throw more people and money behind winning then just about every other country.

For all that we talk about the fantastic level of skill in Brazilian football, it should not be forgotten that a part of their success comes from the huge number of people playing football there - they can pick from a much bigger pool of players then most countries. The US could do a similar thing, and combine that with better training facilities and better domestic leagues by using their wealth.

The other problem with the US becoming more influential in football is that the US model of team sport is quite different from the more European model currently used around the world. Things like the franchise model, rebranding of teams to have more "exciting" names, increased pressure to add breaks in the game for advertising, changing rules to get rid if drawn games and the end of the transfer market for players are all aspects of football in the US, and could spread elsewhere if the US became more influential in world football.

That's not to say there isn't a place for this sporting model in other sports, its just that I'm quite fond of football as it currently is, and wouldn't like to see it change too much. Hearing it called "soccer" more frequently is bad enough

Daniel Bauer
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posted Jun 09, 2006 04:05:00

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I would agree with that, a country which still calls the most popular sport in the world "soccer" leaves much to be desired. They did well in the last World Cup though (a shock win over Portugal if I remember correctly). The FIFA World rankings ranks the USA 5th best in the world! Although it is false ranking method, and most people in the sport do not pay much attention to it.

I still cannot fantom that fact that the 1994 World Cup was held in the USA - what were FIFA thinking? I remember watching it, seeing the international sports media interview Americans on the street about the World Cup, to which they replied, "What World Cup?". Although in their defence, it wasn't (and still isn't) even the 2nd or 3rd sport there. The final in the Rose Bowl was good though:

I always considered having the USA hosting it as a poorly timed marketing exercise. That is, they were trying to raise the profile of the sport and expand into a new market but were too early. This one or the last one would have been better.

hmm, hometown advantage would have the Germans win. I'd be interested in only a single game, a final between the Netherlands and Germany. Time we had revenge for 1974 (apart from that I couldn't care less about football).

So far ALL the games have been realy exciting and action packed - apart from the England game (which doesnt matter too much 'cos we got the right result ).

To those of you who question footballs interest because of its low scoring - The most exciting game so far has been the 0-0 draw between Sweden and Trinidad & Tobago! - With a man sent off and heavily expected to lose T&T hung on despite most of the 2nd half being played out virtualy in their penalty area!! - When the final whistle blew it they were fantastic and reacted like they'd won the whole tournament!! GREAT to see!!

Originally posted by madhup narain: I think germany has a good chance but India will

I recently read an interesting story about India was actually qualified for the 1954 world cup, but they did not play. The Indians wanted to play barefoot and Fifa did not accept it.

So far the germans had played a more spectacular and less tactically restricted football than the dutch: 4 goals and nearly complete neglection for tactical inteligence in defeense. Argentine is good. Tip: Radio Mitre internetradio about argentine matches are great. The signal comes ca. 40 seconds later than live TV. Just turn on the speaker when something interesting has hapened. Hearing Argentine reporter, you know the game is a life & death issue. Anybody knows Ecuadorian stations which transmit World Cup matches? So is: Netherlands, Italy, Germany. I am a bit disapointed by England. Maybe they are going to get better in next matches/rounds like Germany did in the 80ties.

Brazil is great, but they have won too often in the last years. So far, I am all for: Germany, Australia, Ecuador, Cote d'Ivoire, Netherlands*, Argentina, England (in that order).

----- * Winning this time, maybe they will finally stop buging us with their 74-complex.